Creating promotional trailers for restaurants and small businesses requires high quality content at affordable rates. Kissi Media produced this great promo for the NYC Hibachi food truck Hibachi Heaven using royalty free music from Productiontrax, allowing them to stay on budget without sacrificing quality.

To capture the energy of grilling and chopping, Kissi Media used the stock music track Metal Drum and Bass 170BPM DM by Mykola Odnorog. Their selection of production music for the video helps to introduce Chef Joe and his food truck to the masses in NYC.

From the video description:

“Operated by Johansen Oliva, a Brazil native and New Yorker by way of Miami, Oliva (also known as “Chef Joe”)? serves hungry New Yorkers and foodies alike from the Financial District to Midtown (east/west) and Harlem, where loyal fans and diners flock to the corner of 99th and Madison Ave. Every Monday, employees at Mount Sinai Hospital are treated to the only hibachi dishes in the city available outside an established restaurant.”

We think Kissi Media’s choice of music and food closeups really makes our mouth water for some of Joe’s Yum Yum sauce.

Taylor Swift’s album, 1989, which racked up 1.287 million copies sold in it’s first week, is proof of that. But Swift’s story tells us more about the so called “new music economy.”

In the week prior to her album release, Swift and her record label removed all of her recordings from Spotify and other music streaming services, which have been notorious for shafting artists on streaming royalties, paying the average copyright holder somewhere in the range of $0.60 to $0.84 per payout. It is safe to say that, had Swift chosen to keep her music available for streaming, her album sales probably would have been cut in half. Instead, the decried move to step away from the streaming model resulted in a huge payoff for Swift and her label.

Spotify urged Swift to be a part of what they called “the new music economy,” arguing that everyone should have access to Swift’s product. But what Swift, and other artists are beginning to realize is that the freemium model is centered around nothing by hype and Silicon Valley market disruption without a clear path forward for the artists and musicians who create music. Swift’s success shows us that music does not have to be free for artists to succeed, and that artists have a say in their financial success.

Artists and labels should be strongly considering moving away from free streaming, $1 stock music licenses, 29 cent downloads, and performances “for publicity.” Similarly, songwriters and composers should stop working for free and devaluing their work by giving it away for minuscule fractions of a penny. Artists and copyright owners have the power and ability to shape the future of the music business, and don’t have to feel pressured to conform to the tech industry’s sharing economy. Rights holders have just as much right to profit from their intellectual property as tech companies do from their technology patents. Whether an artist is selling albums, production music, or giving a concert, their hard work, training, and investment should factor into the retail price of the product they produce.

The fact that paying artists and musicians their fair share of royalties for streaming and downloads would undermine business models for free streaming and low-cost download providers sounds like a “you” problem for those companies, not the musicians whom they are trying to exploit.

Taylor Swift’s actions and subsequent success should be a wake-up call for musicians and record labels trying to compete in a music business that has been redefined by a bunch of 20 somethings in a warehouse loft in San Francisco. Stand up for what is yours – what you create is valuable, start acting like it.

New York, NY – Productiontrax.com (http://www.productiontrax.com) today announced the formal relaunch of a new website design and user experience in honor of their tenth year in business as a trusted stock music library. Productiontrax.com is a leading provider of royalty free music, sound effects, stock footage, and stock photos for use in creative projects and multimedia.

The new website features a completely overhauled and more modern graphical interface, added functionality, and a streamlined user experience. “We wanted to focus on a simpler, faster user experience,” said Productiontrax founder, CEO and lead developer David Negron. “It was really important to highlight and feature the great selection of production music and stock media that our contributing artists have to offer, so we re-thought how we presented those assets to the user, and sought out ways to create a fun, modern, and fast way to audition and purchase stock music, sound effects, footage and photos.”

The new Productiontrax also features the company’s new logo, which represents their first branding update since their first launch ten years ago. A subtle change in font, color and graphics signals the company’s shift to a more modern and simplified feel. Reflecting that change, the new site streamlined display of pricing, and re-launched lightboxes as Favorites (or as the site says, Save Your Favs) – gone are the little lightbulbs, instead replaced with inviting and functionally clear hearts. The new site also boasts an update to the library’s stock footage offerings, featuring larger thumbnails, and speedier video load times. Even the search engine got a tune up, with new sorting and filtering options, and a performance boost.

No customer experience overhaul is complete without changes to customer service integration. “We refined our live chat support tool, and brought our email support tickets into the 21st century,” Negron said. Customers can chat with an agent without using AIM, and can open support tickets from a dedicated interface, or via email, making it easier than ever to get answers to their questions about licensing and downloading royalty free music. “Our customers are the main reason we’ve been around for a decade, and we wanted each and every one of them to have the world class Productiontrax support experience that we’re known for.”

Productiontrax.com (http://www.productiontrax.com) is owned and maintained by One Light Music Productions, Inc. and is based in New York, NY and Phoenix, AZ. The company has been providing stock music and royalty free sound effects, footage, and photos since its inception in 2004.

Every filmmaker knows that their soundtrack can make or break their entire film. For video production professionals in particular, the quality of the music being used can either lead to dissatisfied clients or to life long customers. Finding the right music for the right moment can be a tricky process. Luckily, royalty free music libraries like Productiontrax can make the search for the right track easy, providing music that covers a wide range of genres and emotional quality, even from the same piece of music. Here are six incredibly versatile pieces of royalty free music that will change the way you use stock music.

1. Sweet, Sweet Success. From motivational corporate videos, to tech advertising, to children’s projects, this piece by Don Swanson could become your next go-to music track whenever you need something light and positive. Evoking feelings of hope and joy, the track gently evolves into a series of sparkling and beautiful sounds, interweaved with a full string ensemble.

2. Dub Step of Terror. This track by Robert Neary escalates and intensifies, gradually building and incorporating elements of traditional dub step with sounds of horror, adventure, and modern drama. Perfect for a wide range of uses from horror to superhero trailers to science fiction to commercials.

3. Pirates – Action Adventure. Whether you need something dramatic for a vacuum cleaner commercial, or you’re actually sailing the high seas, Igge Scoce’s royalty free action adventure music track will help to create the soundscape that sounds like it was created by a film score orchestra, all without the budgetary drain. Also great for video games, and cinematic sequences.

5. Clocks. Serene, reflective, yet with constant motion, this piece by Adi Goldstein captures the essence of passing time, internal reflection, sadness, and can be used for montages, television dramas, opening titles, and much more.

6. Rays of Happiness. Quiet piano and strings works for anything. We don’t know why — it just does. This production music track by Filip Halon is perfect as a romantic love song, or as the backdrop to a peaceful scene. We think it works great for PSAs and other narrated commercial spots where a little human authenticity is called for.